US past marked by injustice;can we rise above this one?

America’s saving grace has always been our ideals, the belief that this nation can rise above the morass and build a better society. But in less than two years, those founding ideals that gave our country purpose (democracy, opportunity, equality, liberty, rights for all) seem to have been corrupted.

Get editorials, opinion columns, letters to the editor and more in your inbox weekday mornings. Sign up for the Opinion newsletter.

We are at a new low and its origin comes from the very top. Is this the nation we have come to be or are we a people who still believe that humanity comes before politics, that protecting the least of us means protecting all of us, and that our true strength as a nation comes when we come together in times of crisis like we experience today?

Related Articles

Letter: Empathy doesn’t extend to US kids taken from parents

Letter: Largest case of abuse in recent U.S. history

Letter: How will Trump explain using children as bargaining chips?

Letter: San Jose pedestrians have too much freedom already

Letter: Why no condemnation of the treatment of these children under Obama?

Each of us must ask ourselves which side of history we were on when our nation needed us the most.